FaceOff
by Kyrial Halcoryn
Summary: A violent tale of vengeance. One woman against the Horde. Who will win? Actually, don't answer that question. Just read and review. Oneshot. Rated T because Left 4 Dead is T for violence, and so is this.


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My first (and probably only) ever Left 4 Dead fanfic. I might do a Doctor Who crossover one, depending on what people think of this... please tell me more. This is just something I wrote in one day. (I was pretty bored.)

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Maria-Rei Tzu woke up happy one morning, although she wasn't entirely sure why. Then she realised that the sun was shining, and there wasn't any noisy traffic on the streets. Best of all, she had no obligations whatsoever, she lived alone, and it was a Sunday (although _of course_ she enjoyed most days of the week, with the possible exception of Tuesdays which were, quite frankly, dull). She hummed to herself, as she made ramen with miso and relatively fresh noodles from her refrigerator, waiting for the kettle in the kitchen to boil. Maria-Rei planned to start work on the topiary in the shared garden, something that was starting to get a little out of hand in her opinion.

Suddenly she heard a muffled noise, as if of dead meat hitting something, hard. A butcher, perhaps? Maria-Rei spun round quickly, and looked out of the window. She gasped as she saw the reason why it was so quiet…

Corpses littered the streets. She couldn't see anything alive, anywhere. That wasn't to say she couldn't see anything _moving; _in fact, there were several corpses – zombies? – moving about in the garden underneath her apartment.

They'd ruined the begonias.

The _begonias._

The_** BEGONIAS!!!**_

Had they no sense of respect for Nature and aesthetics whatsoever? What _were_ these monstrous creatures?!! _*cough* _Zombies were ravaging her garden, her pride and joy. And oh, they'd pay for it.

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Trembling with righteous fury, Maria-Rei pulled her two genuine Japanese katana off the wall, and strapped them across her back, then pulled a rucksack off the table, and opened her secret emergency cupboard. She pulled out various items, most of which would have fulfilled the word 'lethal' quite adequately.

Maria-Rei had _prepared_ for this day. The zombs would regret the day they set foot in her garden, she thought darkly as she shoved an AK-47, ammo, medpacks and food rations into her backpack. Slinging it over her shoulder, she drew her katanas, and cautiously advanced to the apartment door. Maria-Rei pressed an ear to it, and listened for any untoward noises.

At first she heard nothing. Then, a strange gurgling sound, as if of bad plumbing. Cautiously, aware of what might be behind it, she opened the door.

Down the corridor, there were three zombies, one with a massively bloated stomach. Maria-Rei wrinkled her nose as the stench of rotting flesh wafted up, as a smaller one shifted, then spotted her, starting to growl as it watched her with its red eyes. The other two zombies stirred at the noise their companion was making, then spotted its centre of attention.

Maria-Rei Tzu.

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The zombies got up, and lurched towards Maria-Rei as she readied herself for the inevitable lunge. The smaller pair paused a few feet away from Maria-Rei, then screeched loudly, leaping towards her with inhuman strength and speed as she slashed at them. The larger one took a little longer to reach her. It stared at her, then at the corpses of its lesser brethren. She glared right back.

It vomited on her top with a disgusting gargling noise as she slashed at its belly, causing more of the disgusting substance to spew out. God, that stuff _stank._ Suddenly, there was much more noise, and dark shapes appeared at the apartment doors, impacting with the glass and leaving bloody stains as more growling noises came from up the stairs. Maria-Rei looked around quickly, then decided the best option was probably just to get out. Revenge on her begonias was best served outside.

More zombies came up the stairs again, as an apartment door crashed open and the putrid remains of her ex-neighbour lumbered out, and lunged, clawing at the place her face had occupied about a second ago. It looked almost surprised for a second, before its torso slid off from its legs with an organic noise. Maria-Rei turned to the stairs to spot an oncoming horde of zombies coming up towards her. Quickly formulating a plan, she sprinted towards them, then leapt into the air, running down on the zombies' heads as they clawed at her boots. She managed to make it out of the door just as the zombies began to change direction towards it again, and slammed it shut.

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Maria-Rei looked down at her top. It was completely ruined, covered in Boomer vomit and blood. Worse, the zombies outside seemed to be attracted to it – or, possibly, her – judging by the noises they were currently making. She yanked it off, leaving on her T-shirt underneath, and threw it into a wastebin. As soon as it was removed, the zombies' centre of attention snapped to the wastebin, and three zombies lunged for the bin, growling and mauling it. They were quickly joined by four others.

Maria-Rei used the distraction to slip off to her garden. However, before she reached the back gate, she heard a screech. Spinning round quickly, she ducked just in time to avoid a Smoker's tongue, and sliced through it, causing the creature to screech again in pain. It tried to lash its tongue around her again, but this time she was ready, slicing a good half off as the zombie stumbled backwards. She sprinted for the gate before anything else could happen, and surveyed the damage.

Immediately, Maria-Rei could see that everything was devastated past repair. There was now a rather flat-looking zombie on the ground that looked rather more dead than the other ones had, if that was at all possible. The jasmine bush had been snapped in half, and the precious begonias in the flower patch were trampled beyond revival. There were two more zombies, lying on the remains of the tulips in the other flower bed. Also, there were two rather large holes in the garden fence; the garden was, in short, completely decimated.

This was _war._

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Maria-Rei started with the two zombies crushing the tulips, dispatching them with a single stroke. Inspecting the lawn, she saw a large set of footsteps leading over from the left hole to the right hole. There was a bellow from the right, as Maria-Rei's head flicked up towards the hole, and sprinted towards it. She followed the trail of devastation into another garden, then another. Suddenly, the roar came again, much closer this time as a massive _thing_ came slamming out of a house, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. Maria-Rei darted through it onto the street as it attempted to get through, roaring and punching at the wall with inhumanly long, gorilla-like arms.

The zombie managed to pull down half the house, causing the rest of it to collapse in a shower of bricks. For a second, Maria-Rei thought it was dead, until another roar erupted, and bricks flew in all directions as the creature erupted from the rubble. She readied herself, and sprinted towards it with both katanas at the ready, prepared to do a little work as the Tank bent down, grunting and tugging to free something heavy. Just before she reached it, it roared again, and heaved up a massive slab of concrete, flinging it at her.

Maria-Rei Tzu, unfortunately, was fairly effectively decapitated by the speeding pavement slab.

* * *

Primar looked up as he heard the commonly-known and commonly-feared cry of the Tank. "Shit, Tank…" he muttered, then got out a Molotov.

Josh looked at the rest of the team, who cautiously advanced in time to see Maria-Rei's death. He winced at the slab. "Oh, that's gotta hurt."

"Understatement of the year," Primar muttered. "Let's take him out."

The Tank turned around at the noise of the four humans, and roared at them, speeding up as Primar lit and lobbed the Molotov on the Tank. The fire caught, but only seemed to incense the zombie further, as it barrelled faster towards the survivors.

Shivie raised her shotgun, and fired, the shells shredding the flesh into pieces as the Tank began to slow down. Five feet away from them, it collapsed from its burns.

She turned to face the others. "Thanks for the help, guys," she said sarcastically.

Josh shrugged unrepentantly. "You were doing just fine."

Primar and Chris, at least, had the grace to look ashamed as they walked over to the remains of Maria-Rei. Chris rifled through her backpack.

"Hey, you can't do that, that's disrespectful to the dead!" cried Josh, causing Chris to crack up laughing.

"I think most people would say that setting a zombified corpse on fire was _more_ disrespectful to the dead. Hey, medpack!" said Chris, who stashed it in his backpack. "Anyone want an AK-47?"

"Sure," said Shivie, catching it as Chris slung it over to her. "What kind of idiot tries to get up close to a tank on their own anyway?"

They left pretty soon after that.

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If you didn't get the Mary-Sue reference... Maria-Rei Tzu is supposed to be Japanese, but the name is kind of Chinese.

Shivie is a friend of mine who plays Left 4 Dead, Primar is my brother's username for _everything_. He also plays Left 4 Dead. Chris and Josh are friends of his. I don't play Left 4 Dead, so if I got the zomb noises wrong or anything, review and tell me.

Thank you!

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End file.
